The Summer I Was 22
by Miss Moon River
Summary: We cant protect ourselves from that kind of hurt. Its the only way to love. If we walk away someone else will just hurt you, Gabriella. Someone else will hurt me. You'll fall in love with someone and give them the power to hurt you. Thats how it works. AU
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own High School Musical… though if Disney would like to give it to me, it'd be pretty bad ass.

Authors Note: I began these as a collection of short stories that could be read independently. Most of them still can be, but they follow lineally from each other and refer to each other, so they've kind of, sort of, become a series. Okay, fine, they're a series of ten chapters. They're all told from Gabriella's POV, and take place the summer she is twenty-two. I really adore what I've written so far, but I'm warning you it's because I've taken the characters that I love and completely manipulated where they are. Like this is so AU I should probably just give them random names and create a FictionPress account. But it's just so fun to write stories about Troy and Gabriella. So PLEASE take that into account- because Sharpay and Ryan aren't related and East High isn't really in it and minor characters in the movie may seem more or less involved in this story than you think necessary. But they're telling the story I want to tell. So try not to make any assumptions when you see a character's name, because that may just confuse you. And if you all hate it and think it's crazy then I'll be bummed but understand, because some of what I have planned seems out there- but I promise it's written with the dearest of intentions… so read and review… pretty please :)

PS- Here's the Sparknotes version of what you need to know: Ryan and Sharpay aren't brother and sister, and he happens to be gay. Taylor and Zeke dated through high school and she had a baby when they were eighteen and another one two years later. So they didn't go to college, but they're together and run a B&B that Gabriella is staying/working at, because her mother got transferred somewhere else. Everything else will be revealed with time…

PSS- If you've watched Dawson's Creek, it may help to know that I kinda put these character's in that setting and changed details accordingly. (Hence, the B&B) Because I was in love with Pacey Witter, long before Troy Bolton ever existed.

CHAPTER ONE:

SASS

Or How Sharpay and I Had Scrambled Eggs and a Moment

********

It's barely past eleven-thirty in the morning. The day is exuding the kind of heat that makes every part of my body slick. Showering is redundant; clothing is a necessary nuisance, and after too long in the sun my fingers feel thick and my vision turns blurry.

I wait on the corner of Elm and Main, under the green canvas awning so thoughtfully provided by the First Bank of Albuquerque. In accurate chronological order of establishment, it was actually the fourteenth bank of Albuquerque, after the others all went bust, but I suppose that makes it the first bank to survive two world wars and a Depression and still maintain community confidence.

Fissures of impatience shoot up through my body. I resist the urge to look at my watch, tap my foot, or sigh with sufferance. My own irritation irritates me. A little boy who must only be six or seven passes me, yanking at his stiff collar and complaining at the top of his lungs.

I understand the sentiment.

Finally, I see Sharpay walking towards me.

And the thing about Sharpay- that defining, immediate thing you always think of when you hear a person's name is that she has attitude.

Sharpay Evans walks with attitude. She walks with sass. For me, sass is a word that conjures the 1950s, and I think of sass being sold in the drugstore near the soda fountain. I think it has something to do with the word sarsaparilla.

But Sharpay is sass personified. She moves like the sprawling, tightly-built, brassy, sassy New York City down the wide, tree-lined streets of Albuquerque. Streets that meander and curve almost recklessly, as if time isn't a luxury and everyone can afford to take the long way; streets that smell of faintly of salt, home cooked meals and warm sand.

She moves like Main Street with its original 1950s drugstore complete with requisite soda fountain is the bustling, brimming, bursting Fifth Avenue.

And when she walks down it, it is.

I hated her attitude for years. I hated it because I admired it. Because I coveted it. I wanted that kind of certainty. Because Sharpay's attitude is authentic. Mine is whiny and uncertain, buoyed by the fact that I'm smarter than most people, and I know it. Mine is a defense, a cover, and a protection for the wide-eyed fear that lives in my cells and breathes in time with me.

Sharpay's attitude is authentic and easy. She's a thirty-four-year-old, cocktail-drinking cynic in a twenty-two-year-old body.

Even now, another fissure of annoyance crawls up my body. She manages to look like a blonde version of Audrey Hepburn straight out of Roman Holiday, whilst I'm a character from _Bastard out of Carolina._

I'm wearing faded denim cut-offs, one of Zeke's old shirts, and blue flip-flops. My hair could kindly be described as a messy nest. Sharpay is wearing a black-and-pink print skirt, a matching pink cotton tank top, and elegant black sandals. Her hair is coiffed. Seriously, coiffed is the word for it.

But she smiles at me, and my semi-annoyance melts.

"So," she says, reaching me, "I've decided I'm Lorelai Gilmore."

"You run the Independence Inn in the picture-perfect town of Stars Hollow and flirt with your grumpy, daily coffee provider Luke?"

She frowns. "Well, I didn't put so much thought into the declaration. Mostly, after watching an old tape of That Damn Donna Reed, I was just thinking that I had Emily Gilmore for a mother."

"Ah." I nod. "Promise me you're not pregnant with your Rory, after having a mad affair with a motorcycle-riding rebel with a smile to die for, or at least roll over for? If you are, I better be there when you give birth. We can't have you giving the baby the same name as you. Sorry, but I just think there's only one person in that could handle a dog breed for a name and I'm looking at her."

"You're a regular riot act, Montez."

"I'm here til' Thursday, with a Wednesday matinee. Enjoy the lobster. And can I say that Gabriella is a great name?"

Sharpay tucks her arm through mine and we start walking down Main Street. "I am not, to the best of my knowledge, pregnant, nor have I rolled over for Christopher, or anybody else recently."

"Oh."

"Ryan and I had a fight."

"I was getting really excited about being a godmother. So, what did you fight about this time?"

"Why do you say this time in that tone of voice, like its a regular occurrence that we fight?"

"Sharpay, we've been spending every Sunday together for the past month of our summer break, and every time we've met, you've said Ryan and I had a fight."

"At least I'm predictable."

We cross over Main Street, not bothering to look for traffic. In a town like Albuquerque, the traffic stops for you. And when it doesn't, somebody writes a furious letter of complaint to the Albuquerque Gazette, and it gets first berth on the letters to the editor page. And because the Gazette is the voice of God to the residents of Albuquerque, people get up in arms and demand a solution to the widespread problem. They call the Sheriff, who gets right onto it.

You can only get up in arms in a place like Albuquerque. In New York, they don't give a shit, or they hurl abuse at the driver. Here, we call a town meeting and people speak out with outrage about how bad things have become. After all, it only has to happen once to be a widespread problem around here.

Twice, and they're ready to call in the National Guard.

"So what did you fight about this time?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"Same thing."

I sigh. "He's still going on about it?"

"Yes."

"Seriously? He's still trying to convince you that Michael was the love of your life and you were a frightened fool for letting him go?" Sharpay nods. "I think Ryan was secretly in love with Michael."

"He seems to have taken the break-up harder than me," Sharpay agrees. Her eyes are hooded though, because she hates fighting with Ryan. She does it because Sharpay is a fighter, and she doesn't know how to be anything else. If you go to the line with her, she will rise up to meet you, and she'll kick your ass. But she wont always like it, and she rarely enjoys it.

"Want me to beat some sense into him?"

"That's sweet, but no."

"You sure?"

"Very. He has a beautiful face, and I'm sure you could do some irreparable damage to it."

"I think that's a compliment."

Sharpay smiles. "I never compliment you Gabriella, you know that."

"Oh, of course. We've got that whole, you stole the love of my life, like, four hundred years ago thing to maintain."

"You do remember. And you stole the love of my life."

"Please. Troy was a dumb, sweaty jock. How could he possibly have been the love of sophisticated, suave Sharpay Evans' life?"

"Point. Although I think you just complimented me."

"I never compliment you Sharpay, you know that."

"Sorry, my bad."

"I have that whole I can't trust you as far as I can throw you thing to maintain."

"I'll try harder to remember," Sharpay replies facetiously.

We reach The Sugar Shack and enter.

Terrible name, great coffee. Also, excellent food and fairly cute waiters. It opened up after we went to college, which figures. Of course, they opened up the Starbucks and a Kinkos after we left, too.

Sharpay and I start our Sundays together at The Sugar Shack, with a latte and scrambled eggs.

Taking our usual table, I see one of the B&B customers sitting at the back of the cafe, wave at me enthusiastically. I wave half-heartedly in return and sit down hurriedly before he decides to come over and talk to me.

He's a thirty-something stockbroker from Philadelphia, and he spent most of last nights dinner attempting to look down my shirt. Which was gaping open to present a near-indecent view of my décolletage, but one of the buttons had fallen off and I couldn't be bothered changing, and that's not the point, because I didn't invite him to stare. Zeke gave him the burnt corner piece of lasagna and Taylor glared at him over dessert.

Never underestimate the power of Taylor Kennedy McKessie's glare.

"I think I've figured out Ryan's problem," though, Sharpay says. She moves her chair forward, and the strap of her tank top slips down her shoulder.

"Do tell."

Sharpay yanks it back up. "Ryan thinks I broke up with Michael because of him."

"Is that Ryan being self-centered, or is it the whole I-hold-you-back-because-I'm-gay-so-you-don't-date-people thing?"

"The latter."

Seth, our usual waiter, approaches our table with a smile. He's one of those funky-cool waiters, with spiky hair and glasses, and he looks like he's just finished discussing Goethe or Voltaire with a philosophy major/sociology minor. His attitude seesaws between banter and insolence.

"Morning ladies. The usual, I presume?"

I nod. "Two lattes and two scrambled eggs."

Seth scribbles something illegible on his pad. "I suppose you two will be leaving me to go back to college eventually.

"Yes," Sharpay replies. "Back to a life of nightmarish term papers and perennial drunkenness."

"Sounds horrible."

"Oh, it is."

"I'll miss you," Seth continues.

"We're here for at least another nine weeks. And the only thing you'll miss is the tip we've never given you," I say wryly. "And possibly Sharpay's scandalous wardrobe."

"My scandalous wardrobe?" Sharpay asks. "Says she displaying legs up to her ears in the shortest pair of cut-offs God ever saw fit to invent?"

"Shut up."

Seth looks at Sharpay conspiratorially. "She's single, right?"

Sharpay makes a face that can only be described as long-suffering. "Sort of."

Seth winks, and walks back to the counter. Reflexively, Sharpay and I appreciate his butt. Then I round on her. "What does sort of mean? And what's with the long-suffering look?"

"Gabriella, there are many fine degrees of nuance to your supposed state of singledom, and you know it. I know it because I've been forced to watch the by-play for the last seven years."

But I'm not listening to Sharpay's familiar lament; I'm watching her. She's moving her hands too much… tucking her hair behind her ear when she doesn't need to, smoothing down her already-smooth top, touching the salt and pepper-shakers on the table, shifting them a fraction of a millimeter to the left, then back again.

Sharpay usually has total control over her nervous gestures.

"It was a bad fight, huh?" I ask intuitively.

Only Ryan can do this to Sharpay. Of all her friends, only Ryan can rile her like this.

Sharpay nods curtly in response to my question. "I told him why I think he keeps pushing the issue with Michael. He got mad and said that was ridiculous, and that he only wants me to be happy. I said he was self-righteous and didactic, and I could make my own choices. He said I cant make my own choices because I keep subconsciously picking men I know I wont get serious with and then I can legitimately break it off because I don't want to get involved for fear of being hurt."

"I hope you told him he was full of shit."

"Of course I did."

But there's more. Something more she's not telling me, because Sharpay wears her relationship with Ryan sign-posted on her face. They're too close, too screwed up, too much in love but not really, to effectively hide anything.

"Sharpay," I say softly.

"I was mad. I was really mad, and tired, and I'm so sick of having the same argument with him."

"Sharpay," I repeat.

She bites her lower lip. "I wasn't thinking straight. I told him I kept picking men I wasn't serious about because I wanted a man I couldn't have."

Oh, Christ.

That's their Thing. Ryan and Sharpay's Thing.

The Thing you never, ever say, not ever, no matter how drunk, no matter how angry or upset or jealous you are. Except if one of you has a near-death experience, and even then most people hold back.

Every relationship has one. The grand, dark, twisted Thing neither person dares to say out loud, because it would make the world different and too malleable to find balance.

"You said the Thing."

She releases her breath. "Yeah, I did. Then I ran away."

"That's good. Running away is always a great game plan."

"Gabriella…"

"No, really, I think that was your best course of action, given all the other possibilities."

Sharpay looks down at the table. "He thinks he's not gay."

"What?!"

I'm loud and shrill, and heads turn in surprise. When they see it's just the Montez girl and the Evans girl they turn back around and roll their eyes. Damn fool girls making a fuss as usual.

"What?" I repeat, still shocked, this time in a cracked whisper. "How does someone stop being gay?"

"How the hell should I know? The same way they stop being straight?"

"But-"

"He came into my room last night, at three-thirty. He sat on the edge of my bed and said, Do you think that being attracted to you makes me not gay? Because I'm attracted to you and I think that makes me not gay."

"It makes him bisexual," I point out, the word making me uneasy. I'm not sure why. It's one of those words I'm not comfortable with.

Her strap falls down again, and she leaves it there, presenting the perfect, white curve of her shoulder. "He's fucking me around."

"He's fucking you up, I correct."

"I said the Thing. Out loud. And neither of us had a near-death experience to back that up. I think I'm fucking him up."

"He trumped the Thing, I exclaim. I'm not gay totally trumps the Thing. If you're gay, I'm not gay is like the mother of all Things."

"He doesn't think he's not gay. He's just not sure anymore."

"Well, hell, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to take Witchcraft in the European Mind or Inventing the USA in history last semester. I wasn't sure whether to buy a camel-colored overcoat or a grey overcoat for winter. I wasn't sure what to wear this morning. Not being sure about your sexuality, after you've already put your friends through one messy identity crisis, isn't called being unsure. It's called screwing around with peoples minds."

Her eyes have gone wide with surprise. "Why are you so angry?"

"Because!" My voice cracks again. "I'm angry for you. He knows how you feel. Way before you said the Thing. He's known for ages now. How could he not?"

"I'm that obvious?" Sharpay asks sarcastically.

"Honey, when it comes to Ryan, yes, you are."

Seth suddenly arrives with our lattes, depositing them neatly on our table. "The eggs shouldn't be a minute."

I continue after Seth disappears. "Ryan shouldn't get to tell you that he's having doubts, as if he's just giving you the weather report. Aren't you angry?"

Sharpay takes a sip of her coffee. "I'm mostly surprised. I had no idea. Absolutely no idea. I didn't see this coming at all, and usually I can tell when he's in the middle of a dilemma."

"The arguing was probably a big clue," I offer.

"Probably. Maybe I just didn't want to see it that way."

"So, how do you feel about it?"

She sighs. "Again, I don't know. It was easy when he was gay and I couldn't have him. It put him in a certain category, and I got to be tortured, and make excuses, and avoid commitment. And now, I don't even know what to think. It's too much."

I lean back in my chair. "I'm sorry, Sharpay."

"Yeah. So am I. I think. I don't know. I'm betting things are going to be horribly awkward now, though."

"Ah, our old friend Awkward. Gotta love his work." I finish off my coffee. I didn't even realize I was drinking it, but I do that all the time with caffeine. It took me a while to work out I was addicted, but now I don't even try to pretend I'm not.

"I can't do anything about it. I can't stop Ryan from feeling the way he does. I can't tell him not to have doubts because its fucking me around and I'd like some certainty. That's totally unfair on him and I'd like to think I'm a better friend than that. He's allowed to have doubts."

"So, what happens now?"

Sharpay scoops up the foam of her latte with her spoon. "Well, like I said, I had no idea he was feeling like this. I guess we go on the way we were, whilst Ryan sorts his shit out. And anyway, what if? What if he suddenly decides he's not gay and he's crazy about women again? What the hell is that? We start dating? What kind of bizarre world is that? I'd spend the whole time riddled with doubt, wondering whether its just me, whether I'm a comfort zone, whether I'm easier than being a minority member of society," she shrugs helplessly.

"It's still unfair."

Now, Seth appears with our scrambled eggs.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore," Sharpay finally declares. "I want to just ignore it for a little while. I spend my whole life thinking about Ryan, which is ridiculous. How was yesterday?"

"What, the party?" She nods. It was okay. Jason drowned his many sorrows in a bottle of Jack Daniels.

"He's still shitty?"

"He's Jason. I turned him down and told him I had absolutely no feelings for him. For the third time. And my statement wasn't underpinned by a kiss at the end of the conversation. Of course he's still shitty."

"What is Jason's problem? The guy breaks up with Ellen three weeks before the end of semester, returns from California like the prodigal son, and expects you to stand in as his rebound girl because you're were high school sweethearts for like three-fourths of sophomore year? He needs a shrink."

"Jason would eat a shrink alive halfway through the first session. He takes self-analysis to a whole new level of actualization."

Sharpay smiles. "True."

I swallow a mouthful of perfectly scrambled eggs. Aside from his maudlin act and the ensuing embarrassment it caused, and the inappropriateness of getting drunk at his sister's fourth birthday party, the rest of the afternoon was really nice. It's a pity you couldn't be there.

"Somebody had to work while everyone else played hooky," she points out.

"Well, Emma had a wonderful time. She was wearing the new dress Troy and I bought her. The one from L.A."

"The blue one with the smocking on the front?"

"Yes. We deliberately decided not to dress her in pink or white, because Mrs. Cross does it so much."

"Well, who can blame her? She didn't get to do anything like that with Jason. Although, it would explain a lot if she had." Sharpay only eats half of her eggs before pushing the plate away. Her gestures are still agitated, overly-executed. "I bet Uncle Troy was in his element."

I roll my eyes. "Of course he was. Emma reveres him."

"She just turned four. She'll grow out of it."

"One can only hope. I know plenty of women who are still under the Bolton spell, and they're long passed four." I point to the plate, and casually ask, "Are you going to finish that?"

"No. Do you want it?"

"No. I just wanted to know if you were going to finish it."

Sharpay eyeballs me. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"If you want to express concern about my eating habits, don't dance around the subject and pretend to be subtle. Which, by the way, you aren't. Just ask."

"Sharpay, you usually eat like a horse. When you don't eat, it means you're stressed. I just want you to recognize your patterns of behavior."

"I know," she replies, aggravated. "Should we discuss the many nuances of your singledom, madam?"

"So, where do you want to go next?" She gives me a pointed look. "Where do you want to go?" I repeat, returning the look.

Never underestimate the power of the Gabriella Marie Montez glare.

"Well, you still have to buy a dress for that Small Business function."

"Oh, God. Don't remind me."

"Taylors getting wiggy?" Sharpay asks knowingly.

"Getting? You're suggesting that she doesn't live in a perennial state of wigginess?"

"Did we just walk into a Buffy episode?"

"What, with the mocking, and the slayage, and the Bronzing, and the complete decimation of the English language in the name of pop culture coolness?"

"Yeah, that."

I shrug. "Taylors wigginess has reached a whole new level of frightening. Caleb asked me the other day if he could have a holiday from his mother."

"Gabriella, she just won the award for Best B&B in the state. In seven weeks, she's going up to Santa Fe to receive the award from the Governor, at a large ceremony that requires eveningwear with matching accessories. There'll be champagne and nice food, and glitz and glamour, and photographers. She's the mother of a four year old and a two year old, and probably can't remember the last time she got dressed up. Plus, she's worked damn hard for this. She's entitled to be a little wiggy."

"Yes, I suppose."

"Why don't we head over to the boutiques on Cedar street?"

I screw up my noise. "How much money do you think I have?"

"Taylor will probably pay for it."

We stand and head over to the cashier. "She's so wiggy, she probably will."

********

We eventually find the perfect dress, and, because I'm with Sharpay, the Goddess of Shopping, its on sale, and she bargains the salesgirl down another $40 because of a fault in the lining that nobody will ever see.

However, it takes us nearly three hours to do all the swanky boutiques and other stores on Cedar St. to our satisfaction, and we meander home slowly in the heat, exhausted. We buy two choc-tops with hundreds and thousands from the Mr. Whippy on the corner of Elm and Maple.

The founders of Albuquerque a bunch of religious hypocrites, money-hungry adventurers, and mind-numbingly boring farmers found a theme they liked and stuck with it when naming our streets. We have Elm St., Cedar St., Maple Ave., Pine Rd., Birch Crescent, Acacia Lane, Yew Court, Juniper Boulevard, Poplar Rd, and even Dogwood Avenue.

When our forefathers ran out of trees they knew the names of they moved on to the original world of numbers. The rich part of town runs from First Street to Seventeenth Street, but not in order, because that would have been logical. So, Seventh Street is between Twelfth and Ninth, and Twentieth comes before Second Street. Also, there's no Sixth Street. Don't ask me why. Ryan used to live on Eighth Street.

The ice cream melts and drips, coating our hands and wrists. We giggle and hurry to lick it up, but we have trouble through our laughter. The other pedestrians stare at us with detached and slightly condescending bemusement. It's a silly, irreverent moment, half-remembered from childhood: stumbling down streets with sticky, melting ice creams, with not a single thing to worry about. That time when tomorrow only meant doing it all again, and the day after that was too far away to care about.

And because I wouldn't want to share this silliness with anyone else, I tuck my arm through Sharpay's and we giggle and stumble between the shadow-and-sunlight montages of the enormous oak trees.

You get to a certain age and feel like some things are beyond you: playing on the swings or the slide, finger-painting, eating fairy bread. You stop yourself from doing those things those simple, easy, laughing things and put them away, because adulthood apparently means only dealing with complex matters.

But every now and then, I can't repress the urge, and I have to climb the elm tree in the yard, and sit on the uppermost branch with satisfaction, or make myself a piece of fairy bread, and lean against the counter, chewing with unfettered joy.

Sharpay understands how I feel, because she holds firm to my arm all the way home, our elbows crooked together, and our hips bumping. Long after we finish our ice creams and we stop giggling and our stitches disappear.

The heat of the afternoon is finally beginning to soften as we reach her house. The trees across the creek are purple and blue shadows, and everything in front of us is muted gold.

Ryan is standing at the screen door, holding two longnecks. I squint and realize the beer is Sam Adams. After another moment, I realize he's topless. I shamelessly admire the view.

Sharpay sees him too, out of the corner of her eye. "He's been swimming."

"Oh."

"Thanks for another great Sunday. Thanks for letting me shop vicariously through you."

I shrug. "Any time." I pause. "What are you going to do?"

"About Ryan?" She cant' help it; she looks over at him. Her eyes darken. "Who the hell knows? We'll find our way through the shit. Because were Ryan and Sharpay. Because I love the way his nose crinkles up when he's sad. And the way his hands are huge but gentle. The way he always knows when I want a beer, so he waits at the door with it. So, well find some way."

"If there's anything…" I shrug. "Well, you know."

I'm not ready to say it yet. I'm not ready to say out aloud that Sharpay is my best friend, that she's my sanity when everyone else drives me insane, that I love her in my own messed-up, mostly-afraid, Gabriella Montez way.

She touches my elbow and nods. "Yeah, I know." Then she points to my bag. "He's going to love it."

"The dress?" I frown. "Who's going to love the dress?"

Sharpay gives me that looks she's perfected. Absolute, sharpened disdain for people who deliberately misdirect. I'm very familiar with her patented look. "Degrees of nuance, Montez."

"What?! I don't want… yes, he's going to love it," I admit, giving her a half-smile.

Sharpay gives me her version of that smile, before walking away. She reaches Ryan. He bends to kiss her, and she turns her head so that the kiss falls on her cheek.

I stand on the lawn, still half-smiling, swinging my bag, and watch Sharpay, knowing that one day soon, I'll be able to say the words.

Because I love the way her hair turns frizzy in the heat, and her voice wobbles when she's really passionate about something. The way she doesn't need to hear the words to know what I mean, or what I'm thinking.

And because she walks with sass.

********

SASS (verb, intransitive) to speak impertinently, to sass back, to answer back [US colloquial]


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Not Mine

Note: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed or messaged me. I appreciate the feedback more than you know. (And have started working on an Epi for another story of mine, hint hint :)

PS: If you're confused about Troy and Gabi's relationship- that's good. And you'll see soon that even Troy and Gabriella are confused about their relationship. But don't worry- I like happy, Troyella endings. And remember... this is really a story about Gabriella and her relationships with all of the Wildcats... so please keep reading and reviewing!!

THE SUMMER I WAS TWENTY-TWO

PROLIX,

Or How Jason Rediscovered The Chip

********

"I'm sorry."

When I hear Jason's familiar voice in the doorway, I don't stop making up the bed in the Pink Room. I just walk around to the other side of the queen-sized bed and complete the hospital corner. "Of course you are."

"No, really, I'm so sorry, Gabriella." Frustration marks his voice. He wants me to stop whatever I'm doing no matter how important and listen to him with my whole body, because he's deemed this An Important Conversation.

Instead, I fold the sheet back over the quilt, and say, "Jason, you should have that expression written up on business cards. Just _I'm sorry_ on plain white cards. Then you can hand them out to people at the appropriate moment. It'd save you a lot of time."

"The other night, I exhibited entirely inappropriate behavior."

"You can't just tell me you were a jerk? Instead you have to say you exhibited entirely inappropriate behavior?"

"Gabs, I'm trying apologize here."

"Well, far be it from me to interrupt such a momentous occasion," I reply facetiously. I'm perversely satisfied by his pissed off expression. "Do continue."

"The other night… Lily's party, I was…" he trails of.

"Drunk?" I pick up one of the pillows, tuck it under my chin and pull the pillowslip over it in one smooth motion. Practice makes you perfect at useless things.

"That too." Jason shakes his head, and his hair falls messily across his eyes. Years ago, I found it endearing, and my fingers would itch to push the hair back from his forehead and stroke his temple. Years ago, I found everything about Jason endearing.

"Get your hair cut," I say matter-of-factly, surprising myself. "How can you see anything with your hair falling in your face like that?"

Jason's eyes shift color: light brown to a darker shade, with confused specks of auburn. "You once… you once said you liked the way it looked."

I pick up the next pillow. "Yes, I did. And once, during a game of Truth and Dare, I admitted to having a crush on Harvey from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. A girl shouldn't be held to every single thing she says."

"I guess not. I just always remembered that you said that."

I point to the other two pillows. "Could you do those, please?" I turn to my stack of clean laundry and fish out the fluffy pink towels that match this room. They have to be arranged in that bed-and-breakfast way and laid on the end of the bed, with soap and mints. Taylor took a seminar about these things, and she takes them very seriously. If they're not done properly, I'll hear about it. In great detail.

Hearing Taylor explain how to fold a fitted sheet for the tenth time was worse than hearing her talk about organic chemistry for the fifteenth. Seriously.

"You're mad at me," he says in a wounded tone.

Oh, here we go. The Jason Cross Guilt Trip, Version 4.0.

It goes like this: He attempts to make me feel bad for being angry at him, when really it isn't his fault he got drunk and acted like an ass, due to a series of extenuating circumstances that he's more than happy to impart to me. I fall over myself to make him feel better because God forbid I should have a problem with Jason's behavior, when everyone knows he's the Sun King and, in the process, I somehow manage to absolve Jason of any wrongdoing, ever.

My standard answer would be, _No, of course I'm not mad at you, Jason._

I put the towels down and look him in the eye. "Yeah, I'm pissed as hell with you."

He stops halfway through doing the second pillow, horrified that I've broken from the well-worn script. "I- well-"

He scrambles to recover. "Well, you have every right. I've been behaving terribly this summer."

Now we're going to play the martyr.

Yeah, fuck that too.

"Yes, you have, I agree. Between badgering me every five minutes about how we belong together, not listening to a word I've been saying about how I feel and insulting all my decisions and goals, its been a fun-filled holiday so far."

"I know I've been a little… intense," Jason admits.

I roll my eyes and hope in vain that he notices. "Intense? Intense is Sharpay during the post-Christmas sales. Intense is Chad when he's watching a Lakers game. You- you're so far beyond intense its not funny. And the worst part is- you're not even intense _about anything._"

He tilts his head slightly. "I'm just, I don't see what's wrong with my determination, Gabriella. I feel like I can't give up on us. Fate wants me to keep trying to make you see we belong together. Because what we have… it only comes once in a lifetime, and it would be wrong to ignore it."

"I'm not ignoring it," I reply honestly, straightening the coasters on the bedside tables. "I'm not ignoring what we have because I'm afraid of commitment, or because I'm frightened of losing my independence to you, or because I'm worried we'll screw things up again."

He finishes his pillows and fluffs them up. "Then help me understand, Gabriella. I've tried being with other people. I find a girl I like, I go out with her, and I enjoy myself. But it feels hollow… like something pivotal is missing. None of them captivate me the way you do. How can I ignore a message like that? How can I ignore that it always comes back to you? None of those other women are you. None of them come close to understanding me the way you do. But when I try to explain it to you how I feel, how precious you are, you get mad and tell me to move on."

"You don't let those girls know you, Jason. You hold back. At the first obstacle at the first sign of awkwardness you bail. When you haven't known someone for ten years, of course things will be awkward! You don't let yourself love anybody else, or think about loving them, because that wouldn't be the safe harbor of Gabriella and Jason: East High Forever. If you allowed yourself to feel something romantic for another woman, you'd be out there, alone, dangling, without any guarantees. The idea of that terrifies you."

"That's not true."

"Yes, it is."

"You keep pushing me away," Jason rejoins, conveniently stepping around that conversational signpost.

I can't stop the frustration that surges through me. "We keep going around in circles, Jason. For the past four years, we've had the same conversation over and over and over again. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"We haven't worked things out. We need to keep trying, until we get it right."

"No!" My fingers snap at the pink floral curtains, and the pleats fall back into place. "This isn't a math problem- you don't keep trying until you get the right answer, and you don't get points for showing your work."

"Why can't it be like that?"

"Because there are two people standing here, Jason, and your right answer may not be the same as mine."

"I don't understand," he stubbornly answers.

I sigh. "You have this amazing talent, Jason. I can tell you something until I'm blue in the face, but if you don't want to hear it, you don't. You just… sideline it. You place it in this other existence where it doesn't matter, because it ruins the fantasy world you've made for yourself."

He's wearing his Forlorn Face, with the pout and everything. "This is what I'm talking about. This hostility towards me."

I will a state of patience. I count to ten. I take deep breaths. "I love you, Jason. You're funny, you're ambitious, and you're honest. You believe in things grand, eternal, intangible things when I can barely muster faith in the Bureau of Meteorology's forecast for tomorrows weather. You give me comfort, security and normalcy when I need it. You're my friend; in a lot of ways you're my oldest friend. You defined a large part of who I was, and who I've become."

Jason nods knowingly. "But..."

"I don't believe what you believe. I don't think Fate wants us to keep trying. I don't think we have a Destiny with a capital D. I haven't believed that for years. I don't ignore it… whatever we have together. I just simply don't believe in it anymore."

"But you have to."

"I don't! I don't believe everything you believe. I never have. And so help me God if you use the expression meant to be in your next sentence, Jason."

He snaps his mouth shut, and I know he was going to use that expression. It would be comical if it weren't so fucking irritating.

"This is about Troy, right?" he says accusingly.

I hold up a hand, rage shooting straight down my spine, infecting every nerve. "Jason, we are not doing this."

Sadistic Jason has arrived. "Of course it's about Troy."

"We are not having this conversation, Jason. I refuse to do this for the eleven thousandth time."

"It's always about Troy. Perfect Troy. He remembers everything, huh? Does he remember breaking your heart? Or what about when he-"

"Jason!" I yell. He pushes my buttons like I'm a fucking slot machine in Atlantic City. I lower my voice. "It isn't about Troy at all."

"How could you possibly think that Troy is the one for you? He's a-"

"No!" I grab Jason's chin between my fingers, cutting him short. "This has nothing to do with Troy. This is about you and me. Do I ever tell you this is about Kelsi? Or Ava? No, I don't."

"Because neither Kelsi nor Ava tried to take me away from you."

There are no words. Really. There aren't. Finally, I say, in a low, steely voice, "You don't own me. Troy doesn't own me. Neither of you ever did, and neither of you ever will again."

"That's not what I meant," Jason backpedals.

"It's exactly what you meant. And I'm not having this conversation." Collecting my pile of laundry, I move next door to the Blue Room. Only, it isn't blue, its mostly green, but everyone still calls it the Blue Room.

Jason, of course, follows me.

"Why not?" he demands, standing akimbo in the doorway. "Huh? Why can't we have this conversation?"

"Because its not a conversation. It's the same old script. It's driving me insane. Seriously, I'm going to have myself committed before the summer is out."

He grabs the other end of the fitted sheet and tucks it under the mattress. If he weren't being so useful, I'd have kicked him out ten minutes ago. "Don't joke about things like that."

"I'm not joking."

"Gabriella!"

"Jason!" I mimic. I snap out the top sheet with the flick of my wrist, and let it fall over the bed. It's creases are razor sharp; testimony to Zeke's skill with the iron. "If life is about going forward, why do we spend all our time arguing about things that happened years ago?"

"So we can go forward together."

"Oh, for Gods sake. Do you actually listen to yourself when you talk? Do you actually believe the drivel that comes out of your mouth?"

"Its not drivel."

"It is. It's drivel. And it's ridiculous. Anybody, upon hearing you justify your obsession with our relationship, would feel compelled to dash their brains out with a hammer."

"Again with the hostility," Jason retorts, fixing the pillows.

He's picked up the rhythm, and he changes sheets pretty well. If this argument continues for another ten minutes, I'll have finished turning the rooms over in half the time it usually takes.

"It's not hostility. It's frustration. I can't make you understand me no matter how hard I try. And I'm astounded that we're still doing this. You need to move on. We will never be together again."

"You're just saying that."

"Yes! I've just been saying it for years, but you haven't listened. I'm twenty-two. If I'm still doing this when I'm thirty-two, I will kill myself."

"Don't joke about things like that, either."

"I'm being serious now. I want to keep our friendship, Jason. It's very precious to me. But if you continue with this act, where you're constantly at me to suddenly realize were the twenty-first century's answer to Romeo and Juliet, one day Ill just walk away. There's a line, and there's only so many times you can cross it before I walk away."

His eyes are sad, and he asks, beseechingly, "Where did you go?"

I frown, struck by the tone. Almost immediately, I want to apologize for my behavior. "What?"

"Back in high school, back when we were best friends, you would never have said that. You never would have threatened your friendship, or withheld it from me. You're so much harder than you used to be. There's a quality in you that's hard."

"I'm not harder," I reply defensively. "I'm different. You were the first person outside of my immediate family I had any type of relationship with. Up until Albuquerque and you… it was me and my mom and a bunch of characters I had read about. And wether or not it was intentional… you played that up and I let you. I used to believe I needed you for everything. I used to believe you were my definition. And you let me believe that because you needed to be worshipped."

"I- our friendship wasn't about that. It wasn't!" he exclaims, when he sees my expression. "I didn't keep you around because I needed to be worshiped. I liked you. Everything about you. And now I love everything about you."

"Don't say that."

"But it's true."

"You don't love me."

"I do."

"You don't."

"I do." He hurries on. "When we were just friends, it was because I liked your company, your intelligence, your vivacity, your determination to be somebody, to go somewhere. I loved being around you."

"And I genuinely liked you too. But, to steal a line from Will & Grace, in any relationship, there's the person who's the bright, blooming flower, and the person who does all the tending to the flower. You were the flower, and I did all the tending. And one day I decided I wanted to be a flower too, and you didn't know how to handle it. You reacted badly."

"I did. I willingly admit that," Jason says. "But now, I respect you as an independent person. You have your own interests your own life. I don't need you to worship me… I never did."

He absolutely did, and I take issue with his flat-out denial, but it's an irrelevant argument. Our entire relationship has become an irrelevant argument.

"You don't love me, Jason. You love an idea of me… a creation of me. You love the Gabriella who agreed with you, and lauded your achievements, who propped you up when you were depressed, and let you take the easy road out. I let you get away with everything- I let you play me, and I never called you on it. You love the Gabriella who defined you as the genius. You love the Gabriella of your perfect world. And the relationship you imagine having with that Gabriella can't be realized. Because, I'm not that Gabriella anymore."

"I'm not asking you to be her. I don't want you to be her. I love you for you. For all your imperfections, all your foibles and hang-ups. All of it."

I shake my head. I'm honestly ready to cut his heart out with a spoon. It's that or booking him in for a lobotomy. "What would happen if we did get back together, Jason? Just imagine. Let's forget for second that I don't love you like that anymore, and I think getting back together is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Let's imagine we got back together. We'd be gloriously happy for a few months it would be giddy, and familiar, and at least we'd get to have sex this time around. We'd be angst-free for a while. But what then?"

He's frowning, like this is the question he has to get right, and he'll win the prize. "What do you mean, after that? There is no after that. We'd be well, we'd be together…"

"Forever?" I finish dryly. "You don't really believe that."

"I do!"

"You haven't thought about it. You haven't thought about what forever really means. A long-distance relationship until we graduate, picking a city we can both pursue our respective careers in, a wedding, mortgages, decisions about whether to have children or not, arguments and disappointments and miscommunication- that's what forever means." And an imminent divorce if forever is with you, I add in my head.

Jason shakes his head. "But I do imagine those things with you. When I think of those things, I think of them with you."

"This is irrelevant anyway."

"Why?"

I shrug. "Because, after a few months, I'd do something that doesn't fit your version of Gabriella Montez. I'd have lunch with Troy, or stay over at his apartment one night; I'd go to an art exhibition and only talk about it with Ryan. I'd get wildly drunk out with Sharpay and offer you a lap dance. Who cares what it is? What matters is that you'd get angry, I'd get angry, we'd have a massive argument and our relationship would be over again. And we'd put our friends through hell, because they'd have to pick sides again. It would be horribly ugly, and I don't think our friendship would ever recover."

"That's just- you don't know that for sure," Jason hedges.

"I do. I do know it for sure, Jason."

"You weren't always the pessimist."

"No, but I was always realist," I riposte. "This is a redundant discussion. And you don't believe what you're saying. So what's really going on?"

Jason looks me straight in the eye, and speaks flatly. "I don't know how to be myself without you."

His simply spoken words catch me, and the blue-striped quilt falls heedlessly to the floor. He's looking at me with a half-rueful, half-embarrassed expression. "Oh, Jason."

"Well, its true."

I can tell that.

The starkness in his voice tells me it really is true. I should have seen it from the beginning of the summer. Often, I'm so busy being frustrated with Jason's obdurate idealism that I forget to be his friend. I forget that he makes me laugh, he knows my secrets, and he reads my feelings. And that I can do those things for him.

I sit on the end of the bed, not caring about wrinkling the sheets. I pat the space beside me. "Sit down for a minute."

He hesitates, and then sits. "I'm lost."

I remember feeling that way. Carefully, I put my hand on his back and rub it gently. His deltoids are tight beneath my fingers. "You should have said that sooner, instead of spouting all that other crap. You don't really believe it, do you?"

Jason raises an eyebrow, looking so like himself that relief floods me. "Of course I don't. We're like this couple that belongs in a book. It's romantic, and awe-inspiring, and a good tale, but it can't be real. I know we'd never work out now. We're not easy with each other, like we used to be… And I don't know you anymore. You've moved out, beyond my reach beyond my vision of you. You're not the shy, lost girl I found that would only talk to me, because I was the first person that stumbled upon her. I don't know the confident," he hesitates over the word, "sensual woman beside me."

I bump shoulders with him. "Sure you do. I'm a different version of me, but so are you. We have the same frailties and neuroses, but we're more mature. And that's what we were supposed to do, Jason. We were supposed to grow up and become the adult versions of ourselves. But to do that, we had to grow apart, and we've misplaced that part of our friendship that held us together."

Jason shakes his head. "We were always held together by the wrong things. I needed you to reaffirm my beliefs about myself. I never let you be real, or selfish, or petty, because Jason Cross' best friend had to be from a story. Their story had to be perfect- so his story would be by default. And I never let you be free, because I knew you'd escape my reach." He's obviously thought this out. "I always knew you were this fleeting thing that would fall between my fingers. You're smarter, and better, and savvier, and something more. I could never compete with the people that deserve it- deserve you. But I wanted it to be mine, and only mine, so I kept you chained to me."

I half-smile. I like this new version of Jason. He's mature and objective.

He can still be immature and subjective. Call back tomorrow and see for yourself.

We sit in silence for a moment.

And then I speak, knowing that he's really listening. "You've learnt to live without me as your girlfriend, or your crush, or your romantic interest. We both have. We're independent people, who live in different states, pursue our dreams, and create separate and lasting friendships without each other. We'll fall in love and get married, and have children and successful careers, and we'll be happy for each other. When we're in trouble we'll call each other when we feel nostalgic; we'll call each other and remember simpler times. We'll always be connected, but it won't mean what it used to." I hesitate with my next words, knowing that even though I have missed other people in harsher, more intimate ways then Jason… a part of me will miss him for the rest of my life- even when he's sitting next to me in Taylor's Bed and Breakfast.

"And its testimony to our friendship that we're still good friends. Even after fucking each other up, we're still friends. Not like we used to be. Our friendship is more guarded, and less innocent than it used to be. But we talk, we share things, we feel each other's triumphs and sorrows. We hold memories of each other, next to our heart, and we protect them, because they conjure a happy time in our minds. That's friendship, Jason."

"What you miss what you feel lost without is the idea of me as your better half. As the person you could fall back on. Your safety net. Once upon a time I needed you and everything you represented, so I know exactly where you are. You're out there alone, and if you mess it up, you can't come back to me. I felt that way too, Jason. But you'll learn to live without it. You'll find someone to love, someone who loves you, and she'll make the danger and the uncertainty worthwhile, and suddenly, you won't care anymore. You will I swear to you, right here, you'll learn to live without it. And after that, you'll realize that you don't love me. And I'm not saying this to hurt you at all- but it wasn't until Troy was in love with me, that I realized you never were."

He knots his hands together. "Yeah, you're right. You're always right."

I nod seriously. "Yes, I am always right."

He rewards me with a smile. "I really am sorry. I meant that. I was a jerk the other night, and just before in the Pink Room. Especially about the Troy thing."

I shrug. "I'm used to you being as ass about the Troy thing."

"Is he an ass about me?"

"Sometimes."

"It's good to know he isn't any more mature than me."

"I often wonder what I ever did to be cursed with you and Troy."

"You had the brownest doe eyes in all of Albuquerque. And Troy and I were both rightfully ensorcelled."

I elbow him. "You learned that word from TV."

"I did not!"

"Did too."

"Actors aren't the only people that know SAT words. Because I'm fairly certain most of them are stolen from the Oxford English Dictionary."

"You don't steal words from the OED, Jason. Nobody owns a word. However if you owned a word, it would be idealist."

He nods acceptingly. "Probably. And if you owned a word, it would be enchanting. And I'm not saying that in the _Princess Bride_ sort of way, just stating fact. You enchant everyone you meet- dogs and children included."

I smile. "Thank you."

"The old Gabriella would have thrown that compliment off."

"The new Gabriella has a big head." I stand up and pull Jason with me. "Let's finish making the bed. Then we can go downstairs, grab a beer and sit on the porch. We can have a real talk."

"Because this, just now, was only the pre-game warm-up," Jason comments sarcastically.

I nod seriously. "We're prolix, Jason. It's what we do. And I don't share it with anybody else."

He doesn't say anything; but his eyes grow light, and I know it means a lot to him that we share this. That it's ours. This love for words; their prescience, the way a well-written sentence echoes in your mind, changes the way you see something, alters what you believe. The flexibility of language; the glory, the complexity, the beauty, the majesty, and the color it evokes.

All of our friendship, we've used words to hurt each other, love each other, forgive each other, and laugh at each other.

And, now, maybe we've used words to make peace with each other.

We finish the Blue Room, and the Yellow Room, and finally, the Non-Color Room at the end of the hallway. (It's mostly blue, but there was already a Blue Room). We change the hand towels in the bathroom. We put in a load of laundry.

Downstairs, we find Caleb and Sadie drawing pictures at the bench. At least Caleb is drawing. Sadie's making aimless shapes and lines, and humming to herself.

Sadie is two, and, unlike her brother, she was the perfect baby, and is now the perfect toddler. Quiet, gorgeous, cuddly, healthy, and mostly low-maintenance. I adore Sadie, and proudly carry her about town when I'm home.

"Hi, Narny." Sadie can't say Auntie properly, so she calls me Narny instead. She also calls Zeke "Dood" instead of Dad, and Caleb is Max.

"Hey Sadie. Whatcha drawing?"

"I drawed cookies." In the continual saga of Sadie's subverted lexicon, cookies actually refers to dogs.

"They're pretty," I say, although three yellow lines and a collection of red circles hardly constitute dogs. Of course, I'll pin the picture on the board tonight, with the word Dogs on the bottom, so people will know what they're looking at.

"That's Max." She points to the purple blob in the middle of the page.

"Looks exactly like him."

As I collect the beer, Jason asks Caleb what he's drawing.

"It's you and Aunt Gabi," he announces.

Both Jason and I turn our heads sideways to examine the crooked picture, and discover it is, indeed us. The stick figure with brown hair, wearing what I presume is a Hawaiian shirt, is Jason. I'm the stick figure with dark hair.

After complimenting Caleb on his work, we head out to the porch.

By the time we're on our second beer, the sun is setting, our guests are coming in from the beach or from town, and quaintly asking if Jason is my boyfriend, and what happened to that nice young man Troy? Mrs. Kannemeyer, an eighty-year-old, who's stayed here four summers in a row, wants to know if I'm cheating on Troy.

I assure her I'm not.

"Because I would understand dear," she says. "Young women should get as much experience as possible. Lord knows I did." She walks away, cackling.

"I could say something about the guests' assumptions but I won't," Jason tells me cheerfully, after the third enquiry.

"I recognize your restraint in not commenting on my personal life," I reply.

"What has happened to that nice young man- Troy?"

"He's visiting his sister."

"Addison?"

I nod. "It was her thirtieth birthday yesterday, and she was having a party. Troy felt obligated to go, being the Bolton Family Party Hearty Representative. He left two days ago he should be back some time tomorrow, probably still drunk."

"Do you miss him when he's gone?"

"He's only been gone three days, not three months, Jason. Besides, I've said it three hundred times already: we're just friends," I point out.

"Degrees of nuance," Jason says cryptically.

"You've been talking to Sharpay again, haven't you?"

"I regularly talk to Sharpay. Multiple times a day, in fact."

"Which means you regularly talk about me behind my back."

"We're your friends," he points out. "It's our right and privilege to talk about you behind your back. It says so in the Big Book of Friendship."

"You're an idiot," I promptly answer.

"You bring the comeback so well," Gabriella.

"I do, don't I?"

Jason picks at the label on his beer bottle. The corner breaks away and I hide my grin at the symbolism.

"Sharpay's right," he says quietly. "There are degrees of nuance. You and Troy are experts in them."

"Stay for dinner?" I urge, draining my longneck and ignoring Jason's last comment. "There's plenty to go around. Zeke cooks for a small country. Or army. Or something. And after dinner, we could watch some movies, or go for a drive…"

"Sure," he agrees, not needing any coercion. "That'd be nice."

Jason and I have settled into an easy rhythm on the porch swing, and the creaking of the hinges is a regular, comforting sound. Working in time with us are the cicadas. And now night has fallen, and we're experiencing that funny sensation where you can almost feel the heat seep out of the air in deference to the dark.

Five minutes later, Sadie appears at the screen door. "Narny. Dinners ready."

"We're coming Sadie." She toddles back towards the dinning room.

We stand, and begin to head inside, but I grab his hand and hold him still. "Hey, Jason, you still know me."

He frowns. "Huh?"

"Come here. I pull him close and lift my right shoulder up. Look carefully at my shoulder."

Jason rests his hand on my shoulder, and peers intently to where I've indicated. "What am I looking at, exactly?"

"My chip. It's still there."

He smiles really smiles, for the first time in a while and threads his fingers through mine. "Come on Montez, let's go get dinner."

"Don't call me Montez."

********

PROLIX (adjective) 1) extended to great, unnecessary, or tedious length; long and wordy 2) speaking or writing at great tedious length. [Latin, prolixus extended or long]


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